Barkha Dutt’s spin on an IPS officer resigning over CAB boomerangs back on her as gets royally humiliated

Special Inspector General of Police, Human Rights Commission of Maharashtra, Abdur Rahman has unleashed a storm upon himself by attempting to fear-monger the citizens of India and start his very own ‘Civil Disobedience Movement.’ The term has caught steam after Harsh Mander said he would register as a Muslim if CAB is passed. Almost 24 hours after the passage of the bill in the Rajya Sabha, nobody has heard from the man.

Abdur Rahman, who applied for voluntary retirement from services in August this year, yesterday attempted a political grandstanding gimmick on Twitter.

Twitterati, meanwhile, were in no mood to accept Rahman’s stunt and take it at face value. Some digging by concerned citizens revealed that as opposed to Rahman’s claim of resigning from his post yesterday, he, in-fact had submitted an application for early retirement in August itself. Rahman’s plea for the same was rejected by MHA on 25^th October. Thereafter, he petitioned the Central Administrative Tribunal in November, the verdict of which is yet to come. In his letter to Maharashtra Additional Chief Secretary, Abdur Rahman has stated that his resignation had been rejected “in haste, by not applying the mind, with clear prejudice, unfairly and abusing power of authority and discretion” as there was no pending departmental inquiry against him.

The above claim of him being a clean top-cop is nowhere close to reality. Abdur Rahman faces charges of favouring the Muslim community. Since 2011, he faces several charges of the IPC and the Mumbai Police Act for the same. He is also facing charges of graft and assault on his subordinates. The moral grandstanding yesterday therefore, in all likelihood, was a potential distraction by him to smoothly demit his post and avoid prosecution. The Home Ministry meanwhile is in no mood to let him loose just yet.

Barkha Dutt meanwhile did what she does best–present only one side of a story. In a tweet meant to obviously demonize the Modi government, Barkha said, “Senior IPS officer @AbdurRahman_IPS resigns from service to register his civil protest against the passage of the #CABBill.”

Many were quick to call out Barkha Dutt for tweeting only the second page of Rahman’s letter. In the first page, Rahman exposed his duplicity as it is clearly mentioned that he had applied for VRS in August. To hide that admission, Barkha simply ignored the first page of his letter and posted only the second, in an attempt at fooling people into believing that he has freshly resigned as a sign of protest. If her journalistic credibility wasn’t already obliterated, it has now further been dragged through the mud, rightfully so.

Many on Twitter have called out Barkha for her selective tweeting and slammed her for misleading the public.

Moreover, to add to the circus, Abdur Rehman posted two separate letters of resignation. In one, he addresses the people of India and attempts to make himself look like a saint, quitting his job to fight an authoritarian regime. Here, there is no mention of the VRS he had seeked for in August.

In another letter, addressed to the Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Home, Maharashtra, Rahman lets the cat out. Here, he is forced to admit that he had indeed applied for VRS and that his motives of leaving the service predate the passage of CAB in Parliament.

It is indeed sad that in sensitive times like these, especially when Northeast is reeling under violent protests, some individuals use the moment to benefit themselves.